Eat My Selwyn

In keeping with our recent move down to the Selwyn District, I am drawing an end to Eat My Horowhenua. I have set up a new blog called Eat My Selwyn. Hooray!

A Strange and Terrible Place

Brasilian footballer Emerson's wife once described northern industrial hellhole Middlesborough as a strange and terrible place. Quite aptly, I believe. Now that its time to leave Levin, I can't wait to get away from this unfriendly town where it does nothing but rain.

We are all ready to make the move down south. I have finished work. The house is sold. Everything was packed up yesterday and has been taken away. The crossing is booked. We are out of here tomorrow.

Today has been a bit stressful. Lily has been behaving like a typical two year old and refusing to do anything. We've been camping out in the house without much in the way of anything. Worst of all, the dogs ate my chocolate. One and a half giant 250g bars of it (a leaving present from work). I was so cross when I got home to find the empty wrappers scattered across the floor. Chocolate's really bad for dogs as well so I hope they aren't too ill for the 3 hour ferry crossing on choppy waters tomorrow. I would hate to have to fork out for the vet as well.

Scooter Lack of Progress

The new part has arived for my scooter. It was the wrong part again. Another one has been ordered from Italy and we will presumably hear in a months time whether they have got it right...

I am over it. I don't want to hear any more. I just want my cheque from the sale.

Little Miss Obstinate

Lily and I went to Paper Plus today to buy her a Mr Man book. They are cheap and quite amusing for us parents who have to read the same book dozens of times and are a bit fed up of Spot Bakes a Cake.

I made the mistake of letting her browse the books first. She didn't really want a Mr Man book, she wanted another one. One costing $16 instead of $4. I bought her Mr Greedy instead. "She didn't really want that book" she said on the way home.

I've read the Mr Greedy book and it is quite funny. Lily however, hasn't. "put it back in the bag" she says whenever it is brought out.

It's very disappointing. She has such a long memory it'll be weeks before we can try Mr Greedy again.

Sold! (hopefully)

We had an offer on our house last week and we are just waiting for the sale to go through, which should be next week.

In the meantime, we had our second open home today. No-one came, which would have been depressing if we hadn't sold it already. Jonathan, the estate agent said they had been very quiet this weekend and that no-one had come to any of his open homes today.

I have been thinking about Jonathan sitting forlornly in different houses all weekend, waiting for people to arrive who never do. It makes me feel sad.

Scooter Progress

Some ten weeks ago, my scooter broke down on the way home. It has been in the garage ever since. The bike shop has been waiting for a part to arrive from Italy. Last week, the part finally arrived in Wellington. It was the wrong part.

A new one has been ordered.

Open Home

In Kiwiland, when you sell a house, you have an open home. You go out for an hour, and leave the estate agent in the house to show round anyone who turns up. Ours was at three o clock today and needless to say we had to spend the whole of Saturday and half of Sunday doing the cleaning.

We were a bit pessemistic about how it would go. The housing market is very quiet at the moment and it was a horror-show of miserable weather this morning, the kind of heavy rain that sets up residence for several days round here. And next door's rottweiler started howling, which tends to put people off.

But it actually went very well. We had six people round, which is quite good going, as long as they aren't all nosy neighbours. So at the moment we are feeling good about our decision to move.